


but i live in a hologram with you

by levihans



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:25:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levihans/pseuds/levihans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Aomine-kun, do you believe in parallel universes? Maybe in some parallel universe, we end up together.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i live in a hologram with you

**1.**

Kuroko makes his shot but the ball doesn’t pass through the hoop, and Aomine quickly catches the rebound. Their shoes squeak against the floor and the taller boy lowers his body until it’s almost parallel to the ground, making a formless shot. Kuroko only defends unsuccessfully.

 

This feels awfully familiar. Aomine is both happy and sad. “Hey. Let’s end it here today.”

 

Kuroko grabs a fistful of his shirt and uses it to wipe away the sweat, wordlessly nodding his head in agreement. The dark blue-haired boy takes this as an indication to sprawl himself over the bench.

 

Aomine would rather die than admit it aloud but he misses him already. Instead, he makes a list of things he’d dare come clean with. One, he agrees with Satsuki that this is only for the best. Two, he’s genuinely excited about his basketball scholarship (he’s even happy Kagami is coming along with him). Three, Seirin should have won the Interhigh.

 

Kuroko uncaps his bottle of water. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

 

Aomine flinches. That was totally unexpected. “Uh. Around four in the late afternoon.”

 

He turns to look at Kuroko. They exchange a million unsaid words. Aomine is aware this could be the last time, the last chance to reach out his hand. Run his fingers through the shorter boy’s soft, light blue hair.

 

“Aomine-kun, do you believe in parallel universes?”

  


This could be the last time, the last chance to say sorry. Sorry for that time he didn’t return his fist bump.

 

“Maybe in some parallel universe, we end up together.”

 

 

 

**2.**

For the first time, Kuroko is lost for words. Akashi looks out the window with arms folded, facial expression unreadable. Calculating his losses, formulating the best solution for their situation. But Aomine is lying there on the hospital bed like a mess of crushed dreams and one broken leg, and Kuroko doesn't understand why their captain is only concerned about their future victories.

 

Aomine laughs. The sound is bitter. "You still have Midorima. Murasakibara and Kise, too."

 

Kuroko thinks of all the nights they've practised together when he was still barely making it in the third string. Just two boys blinded by their love for basketball, guided by the sounds of their shoes squeaking against the floor.

  


"Aomine-kun.."

 

"Tetsu, just don't say anything."

 

Kuroko knows he's right. He doesn't, and thinks he never will, understand what it's like to be robbed overnight of everything he's ever lived for.

 

That year, Kuroko leaves the Teikou basketball team. He loses the only two things in the world that he loves.

 

 

 

**3.**

Babysitting Mitsuki was never his idea of a well-deserved break from work. Aomine eyes his niece begrudgingly. Grabbing a tuft of his hair, the little brat pulls on it with her stubby fingers. Clearly a devil sent from hell to ruin his life, he thinks.

 

At least she takes the initiative to put on her seatbelt. He shrugs. The drive to school is awkward, Mitsuki with her million and one questions and Aomine with his million and one one-word answers. He hates little children.

 

When they finally reach the kindergarten centre, he scoops her up in his arms and saunters towards the entrance, releasing a sigh he doesn't know he's been holding. He's finally going to spend the next few hours Mitsuki-free, without having her scream at his face about milk bottles and Barbie dolls.

 

The figure standing by the door is small, easy to miss. Aomine catches him though. Short, tiny. Light blue hair. Insanely attractive. He momentarily forgets to breathe. "You're the teacher?"

 

"Yes. And you're Mitsuki-chan's..?"

 

"Her uncle," Aomine answers scratching his head before realising that he probably looks really stupid right now. Instantaneously, he decides to flash his million dollar smile instead. "Aomine. Aomine Daiki."

 

"Kuroko Tetsuya," Kuroko answers, as Aomine puts Mitsuki down. She rubs her eyes, staring up at the both of them.

 

"Go inside. I'll be back to fetch you later." The dark blue-haired man waves her off. It might be a trick of his vision, but he thinks he almost caught Kuroko smirking.

 

"I'll see you later then, Aomine-kun..?"

 

Aomine licks his lips. Maybe today wasn't going to be so bad after all. "Yeah."

 

 

 

**4.**

Kuroko, at the age of thirty-two, writes a book about the Generation of Miracles. It quickly becomes Japan’s national bestseller, despite not many remembering about Midorima and his three-pointers, Kise and his copycat techniques.

 

Some nights, he dreams about Aomine picking up his book at the bookstore and calling him up afterwards to tell him _I miss you._

**5.**

It’s not that Aomine is a sucker for overhyped, overpriced, Instagram-worthy coffee. It’s that Kuroko is on a Journey to Become a True Hipster, and they’re best friends so he feels like he’s obliged to follow him around on his cafe-hopping adventures. They eat mediocre-tasting cake and listen to indie music which the shorter boy shyly describes as rad. Aomine chokes on his standard order of mocha everytime. He doesn’t even like coffee for crying out loud.

Later when they’re at home and he lays in bed like a mess of sugar and caffeine saturated blood, Kuroko curls up next to him as if they’re more than friends, less than lovers. Aomine stares at the ceiling wordlessly, the all too familiar smell of vanilla beans filling up his lungs.

 

 

 

**6.**

Aomine and Momoi get together. Kuroko is inevitably jealous.

 

 

 

**7.**

Kuroko and Satsuki get together. Aomine escapes before he could let himself be jealous.

 

 

 

**8.**

“One of the multiverse theories state that there are infinite universes. If space-time goes on forever then it must start repeating at some point.” Midorima pushes up his glasses.

 

“I believe the universe is a hologram,” Akashi begs to differ. “We’re just three-dimensional projections of a two-dimensional surface.”

 

Murasakibara laments. “This is hurting my brain.”

 

“How about daughter universes? The possible outcomes of a situation are all separate universes themselves, the same way a crossroad branches out into different pathways," the green-haired boy fights back. Akashi takes an extremely decisive sip from his cup of tea. “All things in the universe are infinitely interconnected. The past, present and future all exist simultaneously.”

 

Tapping his foot against the floor, Aomine shudders internally at the thought of infinite versions of himself. He looks at Kuroko and fervently hopes that in these other universes, he makes the right decisions instead.

 

 

 

**9.**

Kuroko is uncharacteristically drunk. This, admittedly, leaves Aomine breathless. Usually things play out in reverse, Aomine to be the one getting shitfaced drunk and the other man left behind to clean up his mess. But today is different, and Kuroko fists into the taller man’s shirt, speeches quiet albeit slurred. Aomine looks around to see if anybody is staring at them, evidently more embarrassed than he’d like to be. He wonders how Kuroko dealt with him those other times before.

 

Kuroko flings his arms around Aomine’s neck, pressing a smile onto his collar. _“Aomine-kun.”_

 

Aomine just frowns as he tries to fish the car keys out of his pocket while holding the shorter man up. A part of him is secretly curious about Kuroko’s day and what drove him to this state. Their feet crunch against the grass blades, the atmosphere languid, tipsy, earthy. He feels like the shittiest friend ever.

 

“Tetsu, get into the car.”

 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Kuroko drawls obnoxiously before dropping dead onto the back seat. Standing with arms akimbo, Aomine looks at him carefully for a moment, studying the flush skating across his neck. The tugging at his chest only grows stronger.

 

 

 

**10.**

Aomine bumps into Kuroko just minutes after the latter officially quits the basketball team. He pretends he doesn't notice the red lines on his wrist.

 

 

 

**11.**

They meet again six years later at Midorima’s funeral. The atmosphere is thick with tension; and Kuroko, for the first time in his life, allows himself to wear sadness in his eyes. Takao’s presence is just as mandatory as Akashi’s absence, and the blue-haired man has almost forgotten how much the Generation of Miracles hated situations where emotions were involved. Momoi appears with Aomine just then, stumbling into the wake like a mess of tear-stained cheeks and used tissues.

 

Midorima committed suicide. Lined the pills along the edge of his bedside table, crushed numerous drafts of goodbye letters and hid them underneath the emerald-coloured sheets. Kuroko feels awfully disconnected, like the person he once knew wasn’t the same person lying there motionless in the coffin anymore. As the people at the wake lapse into aggressive discussion about the reasons behind Shintarou’s demise, he finds himself not wanting to listen. Some things are better left unknown.

 

"Tetsu-kun, where do you think people go after they die?" Momoi sniffs into Kuroko's shoulder. Aomine still refuses to acknowledge his presence, choosing to look at the floor, conditioning his ears to block out the other man's answers, as if they would trigger something in him again. It still comes anyway, like a tidal wave sweeping him offshore.

 

"To me, he hasn't died. In another universe, he wouldn't have chosen death."

 

 

 

**12.**

Their kisses start off slow and languid, lips moving in to crash against chapped ones, capturing the moment frame by frame. But it's too often that Aomine loses his patience and fingers carding through light blue hair quickly turn into nails dragging against the shorter boy's scalp. Kuroko gasps against his mouth and all Aomine can think about is the air that fills up his lungs, Kuroko's breath sweet and warm and pumping through his veins.

 

Later when they're finished and laying in bed like a mess of flushed faces and tangled limbs, Aomine asks softly, "Have you ever been to a place for the first time and feel as if you've been there before?"

 

Kuroko thinks about the crook of Aomine's neck, the curve of his jaw. The dip of his collar bone. He thinks about the micro spaces between the backs of his knees fitting into the backs of Aomine's knees and how everytime their ankles brush it feels like magic. As if they're meant to be. As if they have always been.

 

They say it happens when two parallel dimensions intersect. _Deja vu,_ Kuroko smiles against Aomine's chest.

 

 

 

**13.**

Aomine tries to pull his best pokerface, not letting hope leak from the space between his lips. Kuroko doesn't look surprised, or confused, or whatever, really. The seconds pass in slow motion and Aomine has to moderate his breathing, time each inhale and exhale, the soles of his feet burning against the padding of his shoes. This is tremendously difficult. All he knows is that Tetsu is different. All those other flings with the bodacious girls and flower boys never meant a thing in retrospect to this. Tetsu is different and infinitely charming and Aomine is almost angry that everytime he thinks of him, he gets swept away.

 

Every damn time.

 

"I'm sorry, Aomine-kun.. but I have to say no. I only see you as a friend."

 

Kuroko leaves the room with Aomine's heart crushed in his hands.

 

 

 

**14.**

Aomine tries to pull his best pokerface, not letting hope leak from the space between his lips. Kuroko doesn't look surprised, or confused, or whatever, really. The seconds pass in slow motion and Aomine has to moderate his breathing, time each inhale and exhale, the canvas of his palms sweaty against the insides of his pockets. This is tremendously difficult. All he knows is that Tetsu is different. All those other flings with the bodacious girls and flower boys never meant a thing in retrospect to this. Tetsu is different and infinitely charming and Aomine is almost angry that everytime he thinks of him, he gets swept away.

 

Every damn time.

 

It's the way Kuroko smiles up at him - one of those quiet smiles he reserves for select people, which conveniently drives Aomine insane - that Aomine knows, and his heart palpitates, head clouded with the shorter boy's face.

 

"I like you too -"

 

Aomine cups his face and pulls him in even before he can finish his sentence.

 

 

 

**15.**

Sometimes I look at you and it feels as if you only exist in my head. We're touching but you could just be a figment of my imagination.

 

I get so convinced that the universe is my subconscious, that all the memories I have of you and me are merely dreams. That if I die, the universe dies with me.

 

 

 

**13.**

Aomine downs another glass, letting the alcohol burn at the back of his throat. Everything liquefies, his vision softer on the edges. The bottles even seem to be glowing. Momoi reaches her hand out for awhile and it lingers just inches above his back before she takes back her fingers, and her comfort.

 

"He said no to me, so that just means he said yes in the other universe. Cheers to the me in the other universe," Aomine laughs, raising his glass.

 

 

 

**8.**

"I'm sure between science and faith, you'd choose religion; you superstitious fool," Akashi accuses Midorima snarkily. The green-haired boy coughs almost embarrassedly, pushing his glasses up yet again out of pure habit. Aomine chuckles, "Kagami thinks that we are our own gods. That the universe exists in our head."

 

"And you agree with him? Taiga's stupidity sure is infectious."

 

Kuroko looks up from his vanilla milkshake, tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

 

"If we had the will, we could change the universe. We could shape them the way we shape our thoughts, our dreams, our memories." Aomine's fingers brush against Kuroko's under the table. _I could tell you that I love you._

 

Akashi has a brow raised. "You need to stop hanging out with Taiga."

 

 

 

 

**16.**

Their relationship is pretty fucked up. There’s no other way to describe it, really. Because the three of them are on the same bed, Kagami’s knee pressing into Kuroko’s back and Kuroko’s fingers resting on the nape of Aomine’s neck. Aomine gets jealous too much but he cares enough to admit that he sees himself in Kagami. For starters, both of them are incredibly stupid (but Kagami is stupider, right..?). And stubborn (they played one-on-one for six hours straight once, with neither side relenting). And hopelessly passionate about the things they love (point in case: Kuroko).

 

A year ago, he honestly wouldn't have pictured them like this. In one way or another, all of them managed to fuck up - he left and came back midway, and Kuroko looked at Kagami as if he could save him from anything bad in the world, when he was the one saving Kagami instead. Aomine knows he could just leave again (he also knows he will always come back home into Kuroko's arms.)

 

So as fucked up as they are, as much as they have fucked up (and he and Kagami spend too many nights biting bruises into each other's skin, their bodies like canvases scattered over with specks of red and purple); he chooses to stay, the same way his fingers are destined to fit into the spaces between Kuroko's (...and Kagami's).

 

 

 

**17.**

Kuroko pops the question one fine afternoon. “Aomine-kun, are you ever confused?”

 

Aomine’s fingers do this little dance up Kuroko’s spine. “About what?”

 

The shorter boy swats his hands away, curling closer until their noses are nudging and they’re looking eye-to-eye. “If you’re in love with me, or in love with the feeling of love itself.”

 

 

 

 

**18.**

Aomine still gets nightmares. Some nights, he’s in his mother’s womb, covered in her filth and blood. Other nights he’s underwater and forgets to come up for air. Most mornings he wakes up with nails clawing at the sheet, curling into a body that isn’t Kuroko’s.

 

(Tetsu had once said that not only do people hurt you, they teach you to hurt yourself.)

 

 

 

**19.**

Kuroko tip-toes for one more kiss. “You taste better than vanilla.”

 

 

 

**1.**

“Aomine-kun, aren’t you supposed to be on the plane —”

 

“Tetsu, you don’t understand. I’ve been the biggest fucking coward and I never talk about what I genuinely feel so now we’ve been reduced to this.”

 

“Aomine-kun, _I_ don’t understand. You have a scholarship to work for. You have a flight to catch —”

 

“Yes, I am not cancelling the scholarship. I’m postponing the flight. Kagami’s flying off first. Just listen to me, alright? Like I said, we’ve been reduced to this and I hate it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for fucking up and thinking that I am all great and mighty which I’m not. I’m sorry for letting my pride get in the way all the damn time and I guess what I’m trying to say is, I like you, Tetsu. And you told me that maybe in a parallel universe we’d end up together but no. I want to be with you in _this_ universe. I like you and would you please wait for me?”

 

“....you already know the answer.”

 

 

 

**15.**

Sometimes I look at you and it feels as if you only exist in my head. We're touching but you could just be a figment of my imagination.

 

I get so convinced that the universe is my subconscious, that all the memories I have of you and me are merely dreams. That if I die, the universe dies with me.

 

But I love you anyway. Haven’t I always?

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> am fully aware that this is horribly written. hopefully this isn't too confusing? hehe special thanks to the xx for being the background music to whatever i've written on here ❤


End file.
